Children's Crafts - Bead Ornaments

Updated on December 11, 2008

My daughter and I spent a fun afternoon making some Christmas ornaments out of wire and glass beads. They turned out very pretty and were easy to make. I find handmade ornaments more precious than the store bought ones and it was a great activity for her fine motor skills as well. Here is how we did it.

You will need needle nose pliers, glass beads for stringing and wire. I picked out beads that would work well for what we wanted to make - Christmas trees and snowflakes. I was able to get a pack of sparkly multicolored beads that we used as our ornaments on our Christmas trees, using mostly green for the tree part. For the snowflakes we used blue and white, however white and any color would be pretty. We had wanted to try an angel as well, but we ran out of beads.

For the snowflakes I cut three pieces of wire about six inches long each. Taking the pliers I grasped the very end of a wire and twisted it in a tight circle around the nose of the pliers. I thought it looked pretty coiled up tight on the ends, plus you have to do this in order to prevent the beads from slipping off. Once the wire was ready we strung the beads on in a pattern, the same pattern on each of the three wires. Once each wire was almost full I twisted the other end of the wires, just like I had done at the start. I made sure to leave some wiggle room on these, because once all the wires are filled you need to twist them around each other in the middle and arrange each end to make it look like a snowflake. Tie a ribbon around one of the wire ends and hang on the tree.

For the Christmas tree I started the wire the same as the snowflake, except I cut the wire to be about fifteen inches long. Then we strung mostly green beads and scattered the brightly colored ones throughout. When the wire was full I coiled the other end tightly. Then I gently bent the wire back and forth into sections of the tree. I started with a large section at the bottom and as I worked my way up I did smaller and smaller sections so that it would look like a tree. You don't want to bend the wire too tight or it might break, but bend it tight enough so that the rows stay fairly close together.

So there you have it - a super easy and fun craft to do with your child. Have a great time!

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